product-taste-intuition
Help users develop product taste and intuition. Use when someone wants to improve their product judgment, struggles to evaluate design quality, needs to make decisions without complete data, or wants to build better product instincts.
What this skill does
# Product Taste & Intuition Help the user develop product taste and intuition using frameworks from 10 product leaders. ## How to Help When the user asks for help with product taste: 1. **Understand their current exposure** - Ask about the products they use and analyze regularly 2. **Identify gaps in their intuition** - Determine where their product judgment feels weakest 3. **Suggest deliberate practice** - Recommend specific activities to build taste over time 4. **Help them trust their gut** - Guide them on when to rely on intuition vs. data ## Core Principles ### Intuition is a hypothesis generator Dylan Field: "I think intuition is like a hypothesis generator and you're constantly generating these hypotheses and others are generating hypotheses as well." Intuition isn't about being right - it's about generating good hypotheses quickly that you can then validate. ### Taste is the differentiator in an AI world Alex Komoroske: "In this cacophony, how do you stand out? You stand out by having good taste. I think taste is the most important thing." As AI makes production easier, taste becomes the critical differentiator that separates great products from "slop." ### Taste is a developable skill Guillermo Rauch: "Taste, sometimes I think we think of as this inaccessible thing that, 'Oh, that person was born with taste.' I see it as a skill that it can develop." Taste is built through "exposure hours" and deliberately analyzing the best products in the world, not innate talent. ### Build taste through self-observation Julie Zhuo: "The number one advice... is it's just really about observation and it's about curiosity and can start by first observing yourself." Build product sense by noticing your own reactions to products, then validating those observations qualitatively and quantitatively. ### Be a voracious user of products Kayvon Beykpour: "The best cheat codes for getting better at building products is just being a voracious user of products... There's just no replacement for that." Building great consumer products relies on "muscle memory" developed by using many products deeply. ### Taste means knowing what to remove Great taste isn't just about what to add - it's about knowing what to cut. The ability to simplify and focus is a core expression of product taste. ## Questions to Help Users - "What products do you use daily that you think are exceptionally well-designed? What makes them great?" - "When was the last time you analyzed a competitor's product in detail? What did you learn?" - "When you use a new app, what do you notice first? What bothers you?" - "How often do you experiment with products outside your industry or domain?" - "When your intuition and data conflict, how do you decide what to do?" ## Common Mistakes to Flag - **Treating taste as innate** - Believing some people just "have it" rather than developing it deliberately - **Not using enough products** - Limited exposure leading to limited intuition - **Ignoring your own reactions** - Not paying attention to what delights or frustrates you as a user - **Over-relying on data** - Never making decisions based on judgment when data is unavailable - **Copying without understanding** - Adopting patterns from successful products without understanding why they work ## Deep Dive For all 11 insights from 10 guests, see `references/guest-insights.md` ## Related Skills - problem-definition - running-design-reviews - positioning-messaging
Related in Design
contribute
IncludedLocal-only OSS contribution command center. Auto-refreshes the user's in-flight PR and issue state on invoke so conversations start with full context — no need to brief Claude on what's in flight. Helps the user find issues to contribute to on GitHub, builds per-repo dossiers of what each upstream expects (CLA, DCO, branch convention, AI policy, draft-first, review bots, issue templates), runs deterministic gates before any external action so AI-assisted contributions don't reach maintainers as slop. State is markdown-only: candidate files at ~/.contribute-system/candidates/, repo dossiers at ~/.contribute-system/research/, append-only event log at ~/.contribute-system/log.jsonl. No database, no cloud calls. Use when the user asks about their PRs / issues / contributions, wants to find new work to take on, claim an issue, build/refresh a repo's dossier, or draft a Design Issue or PR. Trigger with "/contribute", "what's my PR status", "find a contribution", "claim issue X", "draft a Design Issue for Y", "refresh dossier for Z".
architectural-analysis
IncludedUser-triggered deep architectural analysis of a codebase or scoped subtree across eight modes — information architecture, data flow, integration points, UI surfaces, interaction patterns, data model, control flow, and failure modes. This skill should be used when the user asks to "diagram this codebase," "map the architecture," "show the data flow," "give me an ERD," "trace control flow," "find the integration points," "verify the layout pattern," "audit the UX architecture," or any similar request whose primary deliverable is mermaid diagrams plus cited reports under docs/architecture/. Dispatches haiku/sonnet sub-agents in parallel for per-mode exploration, then verifies every citation mechanically before any node lands in a diagram. Not for one-off prose explanations of code (use code-explanation) or for high-level system design from scratch (use system-design).
mcp
IncludedModel Context Protocol (MCP) server development and tool management. Languages: Python, TypeScript. Capabilities: build MCP servers, integrate external APIs, discover/execute MCP tools, manage multi-server configs, design agent-centric tools. Actions: create, build, integrate, discover, execute, configure MCP servers/tools. Keywords: MCP, Model Context Protocol, MCP server, MCP tool, stdio transport, SSE transport, tool discovery, resource provider, prompt template, external API integration, Gemini CLI MCP, Claude MCP, agent tools, tool execution, server config. Use when: building MCP servers, integrating external APIs as MCP tools, discovering available MCP tools, executing MCP capabilities, configuring multi-server setups, designing tools for AI agents.
react-native-skia
IncludedDesign, build, debug, and optimise high-polish animated graphics in React Native or Expo using @shopify/react-native-skia, Reanimated, and Gesture Handler. Use when the user wants canvas-driven UI, shaders, paths, rich text, image filters, sprite fields, Skottie, video frames, snapshots, web CanvasKit setup, or performance tuning for custom motion-heavy elements such as loaders, hero art, cards, charts, progress indicators, particle systems, or gesture-driven surfaces. Also use when the user asks for fluid, glow, glass, blob, parallax, 60fps/120fps, or GPU-friendly animated effects in React Native, even if they do not explicitly say "Skia". Do not use for ordinary form/layout work with standard views.
plaid
IncludedProduct Led AI Development — guides founders from idea to launched product. Six capabilities: Idea (discover a product idea), Validate (pressure-test the idea against fatal flaws, problem reality, competition, and 2-week MVP feasibility), Plan (vision intake + document generation), Design (translate image references into a design.md spec), Launch (go-to-market strategy), and Build (roadmap execution). Use when someone says "PLAID", "plaid idea", "help me find an idea", "product idea", "idea from my business", "idea from my expertise", "plaid validate", "validate my idea", "pressure-test", "is this idea good", "find fatal flaws", "validate the problem", "plan a product", "define my vision", "generate a PRD", "product strategy", "plaid design", "design from image", "translate image to design", "create design.md", "extract design tokens", "plaid launch", "go-to-market", "launch plan", "GTM strategy", "launch playbook", "plaid build", "build the app", "start building", or "execute the roadmap".
nextjs-framer-motion-animations
IncludedAdds production-safe Motion for React or Framer Motion animations to Next.js apps, including reveal, hover and tap micro-interactions, whileInView, stagger, AnimatePresence, layout and layoutId transitions, reorder, scroll-linked UI, and lightweight route-content transitions. Use when the user asks to add, refactor, or debug Motion or Framer Motion in App Router or Pages Router codebases, especially around server/client boundaries, reduced motion, LazyMotion, bundle size, hydration, or route transitions. Avoid for GSAP-style timelines, WebGL or 3D scenes, heavy scroll storytelling, or CSS-only effects unless Motion is explicitly requested.